Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (60 page)

“It is swallowing what’s left as we
speak. You are free to run into that if you so desire.”

Samuel shook his head and sat down.

“Some call it the path of righteousness,
but I find that misleading. It has nothing to do with right or wrong, only
duty.”

“What can I call you?”

A smile burst upon the creature’s face,
contorting it into a grin reserved for Halloween jack-o’-lanterns.

“You may call me Deva.”

Samuel nodded, waiting for Deva to
continue.

“The Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, they all
incorporated
dharma
into their belief systems, but it is much more
ancient than that. Those in the West liked to call it fate, but even that is a
misnomer.”

Mara groaned and turned her head. She was
sitting, but her eyes were now closed. Samuel stood, looking at her and then
back at Deva.

“She will not worsen while we speak.”

“What about her condition after?” Samuel
asked.

“That is why we’re speaking,” Deva said.
“Please sit back down.”

Samuel did so, wringing his hands.

“There is a natural order of things, an
ŗta
.
Your
dharma
corresponds to this order. In your case, and in hers,” Deva
said, nodding toward Mara, “you must answer to it.”

“Of course the Hindus used
moksha
to reinforce the caste system, which put thousands of people into the gutters
of their cities, but the idea behind
moksha
was you would be rewarded
for pursuing your own
dharma
.

“In the Rig Veda, the teachings claim that
dharma
is not just law or harmony, but it is pure reality. ‘Verily, that
which is
dharma
is truth’.”

Samuel watched Deva smile again, as if
his own words began to reawaken a lost humanity inside.

“What does this have to do with me? With
the reversion?”

Deva nodded, feeling chastised for his
own intellectual indulgence. “Your
dharma
includes the woman, as well as
the man you sent through the portal. Until you deal with both of these souls,
your
dharma
will not be fulfilled.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal
with either of them,” Samuel said.

“Neither do I,” Deva said.

Samuel stood and kicked at the limestone
powder coating the cavern floor. He put his hands over his head and rested them
on top.

“Major’s gone,” he said.

“He’s coming back” Deva said.

“What about the horde?”

“They were to bring you to this moment,
this place. That is why they no longer serve the locality.”

“The alpha male and his hunters too?”

Deva shook his head but did not
elaborate.

“When the moment arrives, you will
fulfill your
dharmic
responsibility, or you will be reborn in the cycle
tied to your fate. It is how the universe will be. It is how it has always
been.”

Samuel felt the blood rush to his face.
He dug his nails into his palms.

“That doesn’t explain shit.”

“Who owes you an explanation?”

The question knocked Samuel askew, like a
punch to the jaw.

“Then there doesn’t seem to be much of a
reason for you and me to be talking.”

Samuel turned his back on Deva and walked
toward Mara.

“There is one more thing.”

Samuel stopped and looked over one
shoulder. Deva waited, unmoving. Samuel turned and came back to stand in front
of the undead creature.

“The old man. Major. He will return soon,
and if you do not defeat him, your soul will be lost to this locality,
destroyed by this reversion.”

“I thought I already did that. I dropped
him through the portal and shut it.”

Deva shook his head.

“His
dharma
binds him to this
locality, like you. He is coming back, and you must face him.”

Samuel spotted the club on the ground and
reached for it. Deva kicked at it, the stick clanking off the rocks as it
skittered into a dark recess.

“You’ll need a weapon with
dharmic
power. That will not suffice against the man.”

Samuel waited, anticipating more from
Deva.

“We are bound, Samuel. Our forces have
unresolved energy that will carry through this cycle.”

Samuel stood, trying to decipher Deva’s
cryptic speech. Before he could ask a question, Deva extended his arm. Samuel
saw the strips of fabric and flesh dangling from the bone.

Deva turned his palm upward and opened
his hand. There, glistening in the reflected light, sat the Scout, the knife
Samuel buried in his father’s coffin, and the one that returned briefly to this
locality. He grabbed it from Deva’s palm and then bowed.

Chapter 16

Mara heard Samuel speaking as if he were
under water. She identified a second voice, but couldn’t recognize it. Her body
ached, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep, but the pain would not allow
it. She listened to the cadence and rhythm of the conversation without
comprehending it.

The cave began to take on a shimmering
light. She felt an energy pulsing through the rock and running through her
entire body. It wasn’t until she opened her eyes that she recognized the power.

The floor opened like the gaping maw of a
fantastic beast. The darkness swirled about the portal like water pulled down a
drain. The image in front of her resurrected long-lost lectures in science
class about dark matter and black holes, immense voids that would not allow
anything to escape gravitational pull.

She tried to scream, to warn Samuel, but
the force burrowing through the floor of the cave stole her words. She writhed
in pain, moaning in a vain attempt to attract his attention.

Mara pushed herself up onto her elbows.
Her head felt light and unstable, as if it could roll off her shoulders at any
time. She squinted at the cave entrance until two forms materialized in her
vision. After blinking, one remained, and it moved toward her. She could feel
Samuel’s presence at the same time the black hole continued its rapid expansion
inside the cave.

The water flowing down the cave
walls stopped and dried. Chunks of stalactite broke free from the hidden
ceiling and crashed down to the floor like arrows of stone. The entire cave
moved as if shaken by an unseen hand. Even the ambient light in the cavern
pulsed and faded as if a malevolent force worked to extinguish what meager
warmth it provided. The floor of the cave thrummed, and Mara caught a whiff of
sulfur so overpowering in the sensory deprivation of the locality that it
caused her to dry heave. Her ears detected a hum that increased in intensity
until it became nothing but a wall of excruciating sound threatening to split
her skull in two. She grimaced and placed her hands over her ears while rolling
in the dirt. Mara wished for the pain to end as the black hole expanded. The
edge crawled closer to her corner of the subterranean room. Mara passed out.
Samuel stood, his feet riveted, as the portal ejected a man from within.

“’Sup, Sammyboy?” Major said.

Samuel looked at Mara and then back to
Major. He stood on the edge of the portal, which danced with blue and purple
light. The headband and overcoat remained intact, but Samuel thought Major
looked tired, worn out. When he looked back to Deva, the creature was gone.
Samuel felt the handle of the knife in his hand and knew it was not a
reflection or a visual construct of the powers in the cave.

“You didn’t think pushing me through
there was the end for ol’ Major now, did ya? I happened to land in a spot a
little nicer than this one. Had me a talisman in the palm of my hand and now
I’m back to get the most powerful one for myself, the one that’ll get me out of
these damn reversions for good.”

“This isn’t about you,” Samuel said.

“Oh, I think it is. See, you tried offing
me, boy. I’ve spent enough time around thugs and killers to know when that
happens. You didn’t give me a Columbian necktie or a pair of concrete shoes,
but you tried doing me just the same.”

“Mara is hurt bad. I don’t know what to
do.”

“Fuck her and fuck you. I don’t really
care what happens to you or your little girl. I need you to slip us both into a
brandy-new locality before that cloud outside tears up this cave like it’s done
everything else. Nobody I met here in this place got the mojo you do, boy.”

Samuel squinted and raised an eyebrow.

“Ah, you haven’t been outdoors in a
while, have you? C’mon and take a look. I won’t bite,” Major said.

Major stepped away from the portal.
Samuel looked at him and then back to Mara.

“Seriously. She’s as good as dead. You
and I got unfinished business. Frankly, I don’t care what you do with her.”

Samuel nodded and walked toward the
entrance to the cave as if he approached the edge of a city skyscraper roof. He
felt the empty blackness before he reached the threshold.

Samuel remembered the military videos he
had seen in his youth, the ones filmed in the American Southwest during
atomic-bomb trials. This reminded him of that.

The cloud had lifted somewhat, which
allowed a view of the landscape across the field, and all the way to the base
of the mountain in the distance. Most of the trees lay on their sides, with
gnarled root balls jutting from holes in the soil. The swaying wheat from the
field lay flat like the massive crop circles that appeared in England. Even the
mountain in the distance appeared bare, tired and lonely like a hunchbacked man
waiting for death. Between the surface and the bottom of the cloud light hung,
much like the light generated inside the cave. It gave Samuel enough to see
the landscape, as if it were created with software for a child’s movie about
fairy tales gone horribly wrong.

The movement inside the dark cloud
coalesced into silvery streaks of motion that resembled serpents. Samuel
thought all those ancient myths about flying, feathered snakes now
seemed a bit less foolish. Silent lightning bounced between spots in the
cloud, while the air felt heavy and still at the surface. Samuel scanned as far
as he could see, but detected no life. The wolves were hiding or already eaten
by the cloud. The horde, along with Deva, did not show their faces if
they even remained. Samuel regained a sliver of his sense of smell, although he
wished he hadn’t. The dying world smelled and tasted like cold, wet
cigarettes. As he stood, gazing upon a world that was never his, the cloud
inched closer to them in a slow, methodical descent.

“The last phase. Seen it a few times,
closer than I care to admit. Luckily we got you, so you and I can sell our
front row seats to the shit-storm.”

Samuel turned and saw the spreading smile
on Major’s face. He wanted nothing more than to pummel that look from his
skull, but knew Major wouldn’t let that happen. He came back from the
banishment in the portal, and he had knowledge about this that Samuel did not.

“What happens when the final curtain
comes down?”

“Not really sure,” Major said. “Heard some stories in other localities, but it’s
always hard to verify. Not like someone’s gonna get video of it on their phone,
right?”

The reference to the ordinary made Samuel
wince. He thought about the phone, the television, the car, and all of the
other supremely boring everyday items in his life. He wanted nothing more than
to feel normal again. It was not the extreme high points he missed while being
abandoned in this place, but the little stuff. He wondered if he would ever
have that chance again. He dreamed about standing on a frost-covered driveway
in the bright sun of a February morning. He smiled when picturing the brilliant
green of the lawn in the first few weeks of spring. He could almost taste the
bitter jolt of a hot cup of French roast coffee.

“You with me, pardner?”

Samuel nodded.

“I’d love to stand here and watch the
world die like they sang about in that Everclear song, but I don’t want to go
down the drain.”

The pop-culture reference was another
dagger in Samuel’s heart. He remembered how much he missed his music, even the
free stuff from friends.

“I’ll hear you out.”

“Damn straight. Not like I’m giving you a
choice. I’m being a gentleman.”

Samuel huffed at Major’s
self-proclamation.

“We both know you can open the portal. We
both know you can slip, with my help. We both know there ain’t much time left
before the cloud sucks this place dry. But only one of us knows the girl’s
gotta be left behind.”

“I can’t do that,” Samuel said.

“You’re going to have to, son. I ain’t
never seen someone slip more than one other person, and I sure as hell ain’t
getting left behind.”

“So you’d leave her here to die?”

“She’s already dead, brother. Don’t ya
get it?”

Samuel shook his head. “What do you
mean?” he asked.

“Where do you think you are? This ain’t
Wyoming or Montana or some other heavenly wilderness.”